History Main / ISuckAtSummaries

->''"If you can't write a decent summary, how the hell am I supposed to expect you to write a decent fanfic? Geez, at least if there's no summary at all, that way I can assume you're just ''lazy''."''
--> --'''Anonymous'''

"I Suck at Summaries" is a StockPhrase found far too often within online fiction communities, {{fanfiction}} or otherwise.

To say that a summary is important to a work of fiction -- or, indeed, any work in general -- is an understatement. The summary is almost certainly the first thing your prospective reader will see; it is where they go to know what the work is about and to get some idea of whether they will want to read it or not. You are essentially making a pitch for their time (and money, if you're writing professionally), so your summary is a vital way of letting them know that spending it on your work won't be a waste. So making the first thing that your reader sees a statement declaring that you aren't any good at an essential part of writing is a bit like introducing yourself to a prospective partner at a blind-date by saying that you're terrible at introducing yourself and then proceeding to list all your worst character flaws.

It is safe to say that most (though, in the interests of strict fairness, not all) online works described in this fashion [[SturgeonsLaw aren't very good]]. Furthermore, such stories usually [[DeadFic die long before they are completed]], due to the author giving up from lack of feedback. Neither is surprising; if the author lacks the skill to write a proper summary, the story itself usually doesn't fare any better.

Sometimes followed with "please read and review", although most fanfic readers take this phrase as an ominous warning and end up not even reading the fanfic, let alone giving any feedback. Sometimes, the phrase is substituted with "Summary sucks, story is much better", but most readers will react in the same way as before.

"I Suck at Summaries" should be avoided since it tells readers that either the author doesn't have any self-confidence, or that the story is so boring that the author couldn't be bothered to put in a real summary. Or worse, that the author doesn't suck at summaries so much as they suck at writing in general. After all, if the author can't even write a basic two-sentence summary, then why should the reader have any confidence in their ability to create a longer narrative? It also shows a failure of ShowDontTell: don't use the summary to say the summary is rubbish - write a better one that actually summarizes the entire story.

Some writers attempt to justify this when on websites like fanfiction.net where the summary limit is under 500 characters by saying they don't have enough space. This isn't much of an argument, since the whole purpose of a summary is to establish what the story is about in a concise manner without revealing too much of the plot; long summaries defeat the whole point. Giving an eloquent summary of your story in a short space is actually a show of good writing. Besides, 500 characters isn't ''that'' short.[[note]]For demonstration purposes, when run through the word count function of Microsoft Word the previous paragraph clocks in at just over 500 characters when spaces are included. So you can still write a short paragraph with that amount of characters, or a couple of sentences at least.[[/note]]

It should be noted in the interests of fairness both that Administrivia/TropesAreTools and writing a good summary can be legitimately hard, especially for an inexperienced writer (as many fanfic writers tend to be). This is especially the case if your story is complex or is a LongRunner or DoorStopper -- the question becomes a matter of what to include in the summary and what to leave out so that you're both giving a clear sense of what the story is about while not saying too much. It is also worth remembering that creative writing and summarising are different skills, and it is entirely possible to be better at one rather than the other. However, fair or otherwise, this phrase acts as a red-flag to the reader, and so is best avoided; as noted, the purpose of a summary is to give the reader reasons to want to read the story, not reasons ''not'' to want to read it. If you're not very good at summaries, then, it's better to practice and get better at them rather than complain that you find them hard and no one wants to read your work.

In the interests of being helpful, therefore, we at TV Tropes would like to offer you a few suggestions if summarising your story is something you struggle with:
* Think about what the main "beats" of the narrative are; what are the absolutely essential things that happen? Focus on those. Your reader doesn't necessarily need to know about the conversations your protagonist has with their landlord about the rent every morning, but if your protagonist is going to be solving a murder in the story then that's probably something the reader should know about.
* In particular, think about what the inciting incident of the story is -- where does your story essentially start? Focussing on this will help give your reader a flavour of what the story is about while at the same time not revealing too much about what happens later in the narrative (and thus spoiling the surprise). Don't spoil the third-act twist that Granny was the murderer in your summary, but by all means tell the reader that the protagonist's troubles start when an old LoveInterest re-enters their life.
** And incidentally, if you don't really ''know'' where your story starts, or if it seems to start well before the interesting stuff starts happening, that's likely a sign that there are some problems with your story that a summary, no matter how good, isn't going to help with. In that case, you might want to hold off on hitting "Publish" and put it through a few more drafts, but that's a discussion for another page.
* What kind of genre is your story predominantly? What kind of mood do you want to set for your reader? Think about how you want your reader to react when reading the story and frame the summary around that. If your story is primarily horror, you probably don't want your reader going into it thinking it's going to be a romantic comedy (unless you ''really'' want to surprise them, but that's a tricky needle to thread and is likely to risk backfiring and annoying the reader, which isn't going to help you; if you're inexperienced, it's probably better to be more upfront at first).
* Keep it short. Frankly, it doesn't matter how long the story is, how much complex it is, or how much space you have to write it -- the purpose of a summary isn't to tell your reader everything that happens, it's simply to provide a brief overview of the essential details of what the story is about, and/or to offer a tantalizing reason for the reader to want to read the whole thing. You actually don't ''want'' to give away everything that happens in the story, since you want them to learn what happens by reading the actual story -- and if they know everything that's going to happen from the summary, why would they bother doing that?
* Think about words that generally describe what happens in your story in a way that may be intriguing to someone who hasn't read it, but which avoids going into too much detail. For example, if your story involves a lot of action scenes, you don't need to tell us about every one (even your favourite one), but you can tell us that there's a lot of "mayhem", "chaos" and/or "adventure" in your tale.
* Practice by summarising other films, books, TV shows, etc. Boil them down to their essential components and see if you can summarise them in as few words/sentences as possible while making them intriguing. As an example:
** "[[Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings When the hobbit Frodo Baggins is given a simple gold ring by his uncle, little does he realise that it is the beginning of a quest to finally free the land of Middle-Earth from a long-dormant dark power that seeks to rise again, bringing war and devastation in its wake]]." That's a 481,000 word trilogy summed up pretty concisely in just over 50 words. If you'd like a chance to try, maybe try writing some [[LaconicWiki laconic entries]].

Ultimately, avoid using this phrase as much as possible. It's not going to help.

----

** "[[Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings When the hobbit Frodo Baggins is given a simple gold ring by his uncle, little does he realise that it is the beginning of a quest to finally rid the land of Middle-Earth of a long-dormant dark power that seeks to rise again, bringing war and devastation in its wake]]." That's a 481,000 word trilogy summed up pretty concisely in just over 50 words. If you'd like a chance to try, maybe try writing some [[LaconicWiki laconic entries]].

** "[[Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings When the hobbit Frodo Baggins is given a simple gold ring by his uncle, little does he realise that it is the beginning of a quest to finally rid the land of Middle-Earth of a long-dormant dark power that seeks to rise again, bringing war and devastation in its wake]]." If you'd like a chance to try, maybe try writing some [[LaconicWiki laconic entries]].

** And incidentally, if you don't really ''know'' where your story starts, or if it seems to start well before the interesting stuff starts happening, that's possibly a sign that there are some problems with your story that a summary, no matter how good, isn't going to help with. In that case, you might want to hold off on hitting "Publish" and put it through a few more drafts, but that's a discussion for another page.

* In particular, think about what the inciting incident of the story is -- where does your story essentially start? Focussing on this will help give your reader a flavour of what the story is about while at the same time not revealing too much about what happens later in the narrative (and thus spoiling the surprise). Don't spoil the third-act twist that Granny was the murderer in your summary, but by all means tell them that the protagonist's troubles start when an old LoveInterest re-enters their life.

* Keep it short. Frankly, it doesn't matter how long the story is, how much complex it is, or how much space you have to write it -- the purpose of a summary isn't to tell your reader everything that happens, it's simply to provide a brief overview of the essential details of what the story is about, and/or to offer a tantalizing reason for the reader to want to read the whole thing. You actually don't ''want'' to give away everything that happens in the story, since if the reader wants to know everything that happens they can just, well, read the story.

** "[[Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings When the hobbit Frodo Baggins is given a simple gold ring by his uncle, little does he realise that it is the beginning of a quest to finally rid the land of Middle-Earth of a long-dormant dark power that seeks to rise again, bring war and devastation in its wake]]." If you'd like a chance to try, maybe try writing some [[LaconicWiki laconic entries]].

It should be noted in the interests of fairness both that TropesAreTools and writing a good summary can be legitimately hard, especially for an inexperienced writer (as many fanfic writers tend to be). This is especially the case if your story is complex or is a LongRunner or DoorStopper -- the question becomes a matter of what to include in the summary and what to leave out so that you're both giving a clear sense of what the story is about while not saying too much. It is also worth remembering that creative writing and summarising are different skills, and it is entirely possible to be better at one rather than the other. However, fair or otherwise, this phrase acts as a red-flag to the reader, and so is best avoided; as noted, the purpose of a summary is to give the reader reasons to want to read the story, not reasons ''not'' to want to read it. If you're not very good at summaries, then, it's better to practice and get better at them rather than complain that you find them hard and no one wants to read your work.

** "[[Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings When the hobbit Frodo Baggins is given a simple gold ring by his uncle, little does he realise that it is the beginning of a quest to finally rid the land of Middle-Earth of a long-dormant dark power that seeks to rise again, bring war and devastation in its wake]]."

* Think about what the main "beats" of the narrative are; what are the absolutely essential things that happen? Focus on those. Your reader doesn't need to know about the conversations your protagonist has with their landlord every morning, but if your protagonist is going to be solving a murder in the story then that's probably something the reader should know about.

** Practice by summarising other films, books, TV shows, etc. Boil them down to their essential components and see if you can summarise them in as few words/sentences as possible while making them intriguing. As an example:
*** "[[Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings When the hobbit Frodo Baggins is given a simple gold ring by his uncle, little does he realise that it is the beginning of a quest to finally rid the land of Middle-Earth of a long-dormant dark power that seeks to rise again, bring war and devastation in its wake]]."

It should be noted in the interests of fairness both that TropesAreTools and writing a good summary can be legitimately hard, especially for an inexperienced writer (as many fanfic writers tend to be). This is especially the case if your story is complex or is a LongRunner or DoorStopper -- the question becomes a matter of what to include in the summary and what to leave out so that you're both giving a clear sense of what the story is about while not saying too much. It is also worth remembering that creative writing and summarising are different skills, and it is entirely possible to be better at one rather than the other. However, fair or otherwise, this phrase acts as a red-flag to the reader, and so is best avoided; as noted, the purpose of a summary is to give the reader reasons to want to read the story, not reasons ''not'' to want to read it.

In the interests of being helpful, then, we at TV Tropes would like to offer you a few suggestions if this is something you struggle with:
* For a story, think about what the main "beats" of the narrative are; what are the essential things that happen? Only focus on the absolute essentials. Your reader doesn't need to know every minor conversation the protagonist has, but they should have some idea of what the story is about or what kind of things will happen in it.
* In particular, think about what the inciting incident of the story is -- where does your story essentially start? Focussing on this will help give your reader a flavour of what the story is about while at the same time not revealing too much about what happens later in the narrative (and thus spoiling the surprise).
* What kind of genre is your story predominantly? What kind of mood do you want to set for your reader? Think about how you want your reader to react when reading the story and frame the summary around that.
* Keep it short. Frankly, it doesn't matter how long the story is, how much complex it is, or how much space you have to write it -- the purpose of a summary isn't to tell your reader everything that happens, it's simply to provide a brief overview of the essential details of what the story is about, and/or to offer a tantalizing reason for the reader to want to read the whole thing. You actually don't ''want'' to give away everything that happens in the story, since if the reader wants to know everything that happens they can just, well, read the story.

To say that a summary is important to a work of fiction is an understatement. The summary is almost certainly the first thing your prospective reader will see; it is where they go to know what the story's about and to get some idea of whether they will want to read it or not. You are essentially making a pitch for their time (and money, if you're writing professionally), so your summary is a vital way of letting them know that spending it on your work won't be a waste. So making the first thing that your reader sees a statement declaring that you aren't any good at an essential part of writing is a bit like introducing yourself to a prospective partner at a blind-date by saying that you're terrible at introducing yourself and then proceeding to list all your worst character flaws.

Most online works described in this fashion [[SturgeonsLaw aren't very good]]. Furthermore, such stories usually [[DeadFic die long before they are completed]], due to the author giving up from lack of feedback. Neither is surprising; if the author lacks the skill to write a proper summary, the story itself usually doesn't fare any better.

All this being said, one should always remember that TropesAreTools. Sometimes condensing a full-length story into a few sentences can be quite difficult, especially where more complex plots are involved. LongRunners have a similar issue; when a fic is a couple hundred thousand words or more in length, ''something'' is bound to be lost in the compression, and it can be hard enough to decide what to mention and what to leave out.[[note]]This said, it's worth remembering that the whole purpose of a summary is to provide a brief overview of the essential details or a tantalizing reason for the reader to want to read the whole thing. The length or complexity of the story, therefore, can often be immaterial since you actually don't ''want'' to give away everything in a good summary; if the reader wanted to know absolutely everything that happened in the story, they'd simply read the story.[[/note]] It's also worth noting that writing a story and condensing it into an effective summary are not the same thing, and it is quite possible to be good at one and bad at the other. There are no universal indicators of quality or a lack thereof, and while sucking at summaries is ''usually'' a warning sign, it isn't necessarily ''always'' so.